


The Internal Candidate

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Primeval
Genre: Gen, Prequel, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 10:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6701596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia Brown makes the best of being over-promoted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Internal Candidate

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the Denial April challenge and set before Alas, Earwax, my Harry Potter crossover. All you need to know is that Lester really works for the Ministry of Magic and Claudia is a Muggle who has no idea exactly what is going on. *g* Unless you know the previous story, though, you may blink and miss the crossover!

            “This is insane,” Claudia said weakly, collapsing into one of James Lester’s elegant armchairs like a puppet with cut strings, or a junior civil servant who’d just been told her boss wanted to catapult her up to CEO-rank. “I’m too young. I’m not experienced enough.”

 

            “It’s not,” Lester said, grim, sitting down on the sofa facing her and steepling his hands, elbows planted firmly on his knees. “You know the ARC, you know the challenges we face, and you haven’t got a mercenary bone in your body. You are far and away the best candidate to succeed me.”  


            Claudia took an excessively hasty gulp of her red wine, which was unfair, as it was good wine. “There’s no reason to think you’ll need a successor, not yet.”

 

            Lester just looked at her.

 

            Claudia stared back. “I know you’ve got out of tighter corners than this,” she said with conviction. She didn’t know even half of what there was to know about James Lester, but she knew how to do her homework, and she’d diligently scraped up every morsel of information that she could find. She’d heard they called Lester ‘the ultimate hatchet man’ at Downing Street, and she knew it wasn’t always a compliment. Probably the most curious thing she’d heard, though, had been a snippet picked up when she was trailing Lester through Marsham Street; she’d seen him stop to talk warmly to a tall black man he called Kingsley, and that same man had called Lester a ‘great survivor’, rich voice full of amusement.  Claudia had asked around and been told that ‘Kingsley’ had been a member of the PM’s team a few years ago, before 1998, but he’d worked with Tories and Labour alike. So had Lester.

 

            Still, Claudia was pretty sure ‘the great survivor’ did not refer to managing a cross-party career. There was something about the way Kingsley had said _survivor_ that had made it sound very literal.

 

            “Hmm,” Lester said at last, and he sounded as if she’d just told him some kind of joke secret to herself; Claudia bristled. He sobered. “There’s no getting out of this one, Claudia, I’m afraid. Not… as matters stand.”

 

            “How do matters stand?” Claudia exploded. “You want me to succeed you and you won’t even tell me why you have to leave! What’s the reasoning here? The tipping point? Ryan? Stephen?”

 

            Lester looked genuinely grieved, and reached for the drink he had set down on the coffee table. “No. It’s not… Well. The occasional loss of a soldier is –” his mouth twisted in distaste – “accepted. You know the reaction to Stephen’s death was not the same. He was a civilian, he was never supposed to - But it’s not strictly about that. I went out on a limb for the ARC.”  


            “I think you went out on several,” Claudia said acidly, remembering some of the negotiations she’d witnessed.

 

            “Ha,” Lester said, and looked down at the tumbler of whisky in his hands. “Well. It has been suggested to me that I should move on.”

 

            Suggested, Claudia thought. Yeah, right. You have your orders. And I suppose I have mine.

 

            She sipped at her red wine. “You think it’s necessary. For me to do this.”

 

            “I think it’s imperative,” Lester said simply. “Or I wouldn’t have asked you. The other candidates for the job are people who could make a teddy-bears’ picnic into a bloodbath.”

 

            Claudia stared at the surface of her wine, the light-heavy weight of the glass in her hand, the edge of her soft pink-brown lipstick on its rim.

 

            “You’ll have help, of course,” Lester said. “Jenny will stay on, and you can always call on me for advice. You have solid administrative professionals and an experienced military contingent. The team will hold together.”

 

            Claudia’s eyes jerked back to his face, and she snorted. “Really? After everything that’s happened? You honestly think…”

 

            “I think you can hold them together,” Lester said, and his blue eyes were uncomfortably sincere, none of the sarcasm or delicate disdain that usually hid his real thoughts clouding them.

 

            Claudia had had enough of having to take ‘passable, Miss Brown’ as the world’s highest compliment: it made her uncomfortable, but she held his gaze.

 

            “I’ll do it,” she said.

 

***

 

            Three weeks into the job, Claudia met Lester for lunch.

 

            “I think it’s going well,” she said, toying with her starter. “Nothing’s blown up yet. And I’ve got a great PA, thanks to somebody.”

 

            Lester smiled, urbane, confident, sleek; nothing like the man who had sat her down in the evening gloom of his flat and talked almost honestly about the knife-edge the ARC rested on. “I was _more_ than happy to connect Miss Wickes to a more interesting job. And you to a more competent amanuensis.”

 

            “I think you might have given us other assistance, too.” Claudia knew Christine Johnson hadn’t backed off because of anything she’d done.

 

            Lester’s eyes narrowed very slightly, and the smile hardened a little. “Again, Claudia, it was no trouble.”

 

            “Thank you anyway,” Claudia said, and actually ate some more asparagus instead of pushing it around with her fork.

 

            She wondered what she, or the ARC, owed him now, and when the bill would fall due.

 

***

 

            A second meeting was a snatched moment in a café near Marsham Street; Claudia had a concrete problem and an outlined plan for solving it, but she wanted another eye on it. Lester ran through it with her, made a few suggestions, and then sat back and declared that her work was excellent and he had no idea why she was bothering with him, but if she wanted to improve her grasp of similar situations, he could suggest some potential contacts who would be more than happy to have a discussion.

 

            Claudia scribbled down a few names.

 

            “And I see Jenny has had a go at your wardrobe,” Lester said.

 

            Claudia glanced down at herself in surprise; it was true her half-sister had delivered a few home truths about image and the contents of her wardrobe and dragged her to Oxford Street for a gruelling and expensive session. But Claudia felt better in the clothes Jenny had suggested. More like the CEO she was meant to be.

 

            She was particularly proud of today’s sharp grey jacket and navy blue boatneck top, heeled ankle boots, and well-cut trousers. With the dramatic earrings her and Jenny’s mother had given her for her last birthday, she felt she looked appropriately authoritative. And Jenny was right; she walked taller.

 

            “Yes,” she said. “I find appearances matter.”  


            Lester nodded.

 

            “It was time for a change.” Claudia shoved her notebook into her handbag, not new but grudgingly approved by Jenny. “People take me more seriously this way.”  


            One side of Lester’s mouth quirked up. “Looking the part is half the battle.”

 

***

 

            “Your speech was very impressive,” Lester remarked, appearing from nowhere.

 

            Claudia, who liked to think that her projection of unflappable professionalism was improving, did not drop her wine. “Thank you. I was surprised they gave me such a prominent slot, but I was grateful for the platform, I had a number of things I wanted to say.”  


            “They were well said,” Lester told her, and the man Claudia had been talking to, who had wanted to discuss some point of her speech, nodded in agreement.

 

            “Oh,” Claudia said, remembering her manners. “James, have you met Ian? Ian Mackie, James Lester. Ian was just asking me about the practical, containment element…”

 

***

 

            “If you’re calling to tell me there’s something afoot somewhere _gloriously_ inappropriate,” Claudia said, dodging her way down Whitehall with her phone clamped to her ear, “I hope you’re also calling to tell me that you have it well in hand.”

 

            There was a small, traitorous pause. “Well,” Captain Becker said. “It is… in hand. In a manner of speaking.”

 

            “Where are you?”

 

            “ARC basement.”

 

            Claudia almost tripped over a toddler tourist, swore, ducked around a member of the Household Cavalry, and continued marching towards Parliament Square. “Who are you with?”

 

            “Miss Lewis, Temple, Quinn, Miss Wickes –“

 

            “Give the phone to Lorraine,” Claudia said, crossing two lanes of traffic. “Send Connor back to his desk unless he is actively involved in fixing the situation. Lock Quinn in a suitable cupboard until the situation is resolved. Give Jenny my condolences.”

 

            “… Right, Miss Brown.” Becker did not sound wholly convinced.

 

            “Just do it, Becker,” Claudia said, coming to an abrupt halt in order not to flatten James Lester. “Oh, good morning, James, lovely to see you but you’ll have to excuse me.”

 

            “I take it there’s a work emergency,” Lester said, looking far too amused, and vaguely wistful. Claudia considered and then rejected the notion that he might miss the ARC.

 

            “It’s a day with a y in it, James. What do you think?” She found a harassed smile for him, and ducked around him. “Right, Lorraine. Tell me, please, as concisely as possible – exactly _what_ is happening in our basement?”

 

***

 

            “How nice to see you again, Claudia,” Christine Johnson smiled insincerely.

 

            “Delightful,” Claudia said, instead of ‘get stuffed, you scheming, murderous hag’, on the grounds that the corridor outside the Minister’s office was a silly place to say that sort of thing. “I hope you’re well?”

 

            “Just fine, thank you,” Christine said. “I hope the ARC is treating you well?”

 

            _I hope you’re burning in hell_ , Christine’s piggy little blue eyes said.           

 

            Claudia did not flinch. She liked to think she never would have done, even knowing the things Christine had had planned for the ARC and the power Christine wielded, but this time she had personally put a stake through the heart of Christine’s dying career. “Oh, much as ever, really.”

 

            “I know you used to find it rather a _challenge_. Without your former guidance. Although, of course, James Lester is an… ever-present help.”

 

            Nasty little woman. “I believe I’ve settled into the role,” Claudia said cheerfully. “And of course, I’ve been lucky in my peers and mentors. It’s always good to have good advice, don’t you think, Christine?”

 

_You could have used some, Christine._

 

            “Oh,” Christine said, bitterness in the flash of her sharp white teeth, “I quite agree.”  


            “Sorry to dash,” Claudia said, nodding towards the Minister’s door. “But I have an urgent meeting. Oh, I heard about your new posting, by the way. Congratulations.”

 

Christine seethed.

 

“Enjoy Jamaica,” Claudia smiled, and sailed into the Minister’s office on the wings of triumph.

 


End file.
